ORLANDO, Fla. — Department of Children and Families officials announced changes they plan on making to keep children in Florida safe from convicted sexual predators.
The report comes after a registered sex offender raped and killed an 8-year-old Florida girl shortly after he was released from prison.
It took 46 pages to detail exactly how the planned changes would happen. The report covers the new policies that take effect even before the convicted sexual offender leaves prison and has access to children.
Donald Smith was arrested after investigators said he raped and then killed Cherish Periwinkle three weeks after getting out of prison.
"If nothing happens now, there is going to be another little child on the news with an Amber Alert," said Rayne Periwinkle, as she made an emotional plea at a hearing meant to get feedback on how to strengthen monitoring of the most violent sexual offenders and predators.
"They should have a tattoo on their forehead," said Periwinkle.
Now, a few weeks later, the report calls for changes that include more face-to-face evaluations to see if convicted sex offenders are likely to commit violent sex crimes in the future.
Another change is that if two evaluators believe more violence is possible, then a petition to treat the sex offender in a facility must be made.
These are ideas that may have prevented the death of Cherish, who was found dead near a church in Jacksonville 10 hours after she was kidnapped.
"When I found her, I notified the homicide detectives. I looked up and said, 'Oh my God, who does this? Who does this?'" said the police officer who was at the scene the day Cherish was found.
The report also calls for cases that involved "attempted kidnapping" or "attempted murder" to be automatically sent for evaluation. Also, the changes demand that contracts with medical professionals who evaluate cases be reduced from three years to one year in order to give the state more control.
These are changes that come too late for Cherish and her mother, but just in time for other innocent young lives.
Also included in the report will be a new system to evaluate the people doing the evaluations.
The person in charge will no longer be a psychologist. For now, the DCF secretary has placed a lawyer, familiar with case law, in charge of the sexually violent predator program.
WFTV
